FREEDOM OF SPEECH? HA! LET’S TAX EMAIL!

In what might be compared to taxing cars to save the horse and buggy, there’s a move afoot in Berkeley to tax email to shore up a local branch of the U.S. Postal Service.

The proposal, by Berkeley Councilman Gordon Wozniak, would levy a “bit tax” on all email as part of a broader Internet tax.

The idea originated with an information technology adviser to the Canadian government, who during a 1997 lecture at Harvard Law School suggested a new tax base “that is at the heart of a new economy.” But just one year later Congress passed a law called the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which bans Internet taxation.

With that law set to expire next November, it’s not surprising that we’re hearing talk of taxing the Internet again. The irony is that it’s coming from Berkeley, in the 1960s the home of the free speech movement. And what better vehicle for free speech than the Internet?

As silly as Wozniak’s suggestion may seem, in this tax-happy environment it’s not to be taken lightly. A columnist for another newspaper called Wozniak “the most courageous politician in California” and lauded the idea as a way to “help replace the tax revenue lost by technology putting people out of work” — and at the same time cut down on spam and scammers.

So why stop there? Why not a tax on texting and tweets? A fee for Facebook status updates or Farmville invites?